As various sound devices including sound output terminals such as speakers have been developed, various types of multimedia systems utilizing the sound devices, for example, loudspeaker systems for lecture hall/broadcasting/facility use, stereophonic systems for home/facility use, audio systems for home/facility use, audio systems for car use, and the like have been widely and actively used.
As described above, with the spread of the multimedia systems using the sound devices, the task of “how to properly transfer sound data output from a sound output terminal (for example, a speaker) of a sound device to listeners has become a very important issue, and accordingly, related companies have tried in various ways to solve the corresponding issues.
Conventionally, in an effort to solve the problem, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a related company equips a facility S (for example, a lecture hall, a broadcasting station, a house, a theater, a commercial facility, a car, or the like) having a sound device 2 and a multimedia system with a tuning microphone 5 to repeatedly perform a series of sound tuning operations using the tuning microphone 5 until a proper sound is obtained. The series of sound tuning operations include: an operation of outputting tuning sound (TS) through a sound output terminal 1 such as a speaker; an operation of picking up the TS through the tuning microphone 5; an operation of allowing a sound engineer of the related company to connect and install a large measurement device 4 to a part of the sound device 2 to enable the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5 to be fed back through the measurement device 4; an operation of allowing the sound engineer to measure the TS fed back through the measurement 4 to control a volume level of the TS manually and transmit the volume level-controlled TS to an equalizer 3 of the sound device 2; an operation of re-outputting the volume level-controlled TS from the equalizer 3 through the sound output terminal 1; and the like. Thereafter, as illustrated in FIG. 2, when the sound device 2 and the multimedia system are actually used, the sound tuning operations are performed so that the sound data output from the sound output terminal 1 of the sound device 2 can be properly listened by the listener M.
In this case, the aforementioned tuning microphone 5 functions as a hearing organ E of the listener M (see FIG. 2) and exclusively and continuously performs the function of picking up the TS and feeding the TS back to the measurement device 4 during the series of sound tuning operations.
In this technique, as described above, the sound engineer of the related company repeatedly performs the operations of receiving feedback of the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5 through the measurement device 4, controlling the volume level of the fed-back TS manually, and re-outputting the TS, to complete the series of sound tuning processes.
In this case, the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5 is used as a basic source in a volume level control mechanism performed by the sound engineer, so that the problem of how to pick up the TS by the tuning microphone 5 and feed the TS back is considered to be a very important factor in terms of sound tuning quality.
However, the conventional tuning microphone 5 is generally disposed at a position in the facility S determined by the sound engineer. Therefore, the position of the tuning microphone 5 may be significantly different from the position of the hearing organ E of the listener M (that is, the actual sound pick-up position of the listener M), as illustrated in FIG. 2. As a result, when the sound device 2 and the multimedia system are actually used, the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5 may be significantly different from the sounds the listener M hears.
In addition, in this case, even though the sound engineer of the related company normally performs the series of sound tuning operations (that is, the operations of receiving the feedback of the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5 through the measurement device 4, controlling the volume level of the fed-back TS manually, and re-outputting the TS) by using the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5, the equalizer 3 of the sound device 2 cannot acquire a moderate sound output ability. As a result, when the sound device 2 and the multimedia system are actually used, even if a sound volume control operation is performed by the equalizer 3, the sound data finally output from the sound output terminal 1 may have degraded sound quality (pitch, clearness and tone quality) different from the actual hearing situation of the listener M.
Consequently, the listener M who is the final consumer of the sound data has to take disadvantages caused by the degradation in the sound data quality (pitch, clearness and tone quality).
Moreover, conventionally, in order to control the volume level of the TS picked up by the tuning microphone 5 and normally re-output the TS, a series of measurement operations using the large measurement device 4 and volume level operations have to be additionally performed. Therefore, the related company may have additional problems, for example, problems with installation of additional measurement devices 4 and additional manual manipulation of the measurement devices 4.